Sexuality Policy Watch

Tag Archives: authoritarianism

This is our second and latest bulletin of 2025. It offers a broad overview of events and trends in gender, sexuality, and abortion policy throughout the year to complement the analysis developed in July that addressed the policies implemented by the Trump’s second administration and the US landscape.

On January 22, Trump’s administrarion announced it was suspending the funding for foreign organizations that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. SPW summarized the main changes, which expand the restrictions set by the Mexico City Policy and will have many ramifications. Check it out below:

Since we released our second 2025 bulletin, last December, the world has gotten worse. What happened in Venezuela on January 3, with the capture of Nicolás Maduro by US military forces in Caracas and his imprisonment on US territory, has radically altered the world order, with effects far beyond Latin America.

The Diálogos Pendientes y Emergentes (Pending and Emerging Dialogues) space is a joint initiative of five organizations working on gender, sexuality, and reproductive justice issues in Latin America: the Sexuality and Politics Watch (SPW), Akahatá, Promsex, Puentes, and Synergia.

Patton for Dummies – The Dispatch The Nuremberg Clown Rally – Discourse Blog Pete Hegseth’s “Warrior Ethos” Is Just the Closet in Camouflage – Them

Throughout 2025, SPW participated in several national and international events and, together with new and old partners, promoted debates and launched new publications.

On June 17th, SPW hosted, as part of the Pending and Emerging Dialogues project, the debate The new world disorder: meanings and impacts of Trump 2.0, with the participation of Heidi Beirich (GPAHE – focus on Project 2025) and Paisley Currah (Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies, expert on trans rights).

Question: Two weeks ago, we witnessed a new and fierce attack on academic freedom in the United States. The University of Berkeley that is considered

In June 2019, we published a special issue on the first 180 days of the Bolsonaro administration. Six years later, we take on the challenge

Photo: Rudolf Karancsi/AP Hungary Banned Pride Events. Thousands Marched Anyway. – Mother Jones Budapest Pride draws huge crowds in defiance of Orban legal threats –

Democracy promotion The emotional fallout of mass USAID and NGO layoffs – Devex What cutting USAID could cost the U.S. — and how China, Russia

Trump’s First 100 Days: 5 Attacks on Reproductive Rights You Might Have Missed – Center for Reproductive Rights The Supreme Court Just Made It Easier

Image: Wikipedia President Trump’s war on higher education – NPR Trump Has Targeted These Universities. Why? – NY Times Inside Trump’s Pressure Campaign on Universities

Analysis The Constitutional Crisis Is Here – Atlantic How Trump’s immigration policies compare to those of America’s past – Berkeley News We Study Repression in

Analysis The Targeted Chaos of Trump’s Attacks Against International Human Rights Law and Justice – American Civil Liberties Union What do the Trump administration’s sanctions

Analysis The Anti-Trans Executive Orders – Signs Journal The Human Toll of Trump’s Anti-Trans Crusade – American Civil Liberties Union Trump on DEI And Anti-Discrimination

The ridiculous real story behind the tariff plan that turned Donald Trump into a global disaster – Rachel Maddow Show The Trump Tariffs Just Got

Analysis DOGE Has Achieved Its Final Form – Wired What Did Elon Musk Accomplish at DOGE? – New Yorker DOGE Is Busier Than Ever—and Trump

European CPACs show the growing unity of the global far-right – NPR Foro Madrid and the Transnationalization of the Far-Right – Cambridge University Press Orban,

Image: Getty Image USA There Was a Record 5 to 6 Million People Who Took to the Streets to Stop Trump on Saturday! — And

To mark the launch of SPW’s new website, we invited some long-term partners to explore our archive and select a piece of content (a publication,

To mark the launch of SPW’s new website, we invited some long-term partners to explore our archive and select a piece of content (a publication,

By Judith ButlerPublished at The Guardian As Trump delivers a series of devastating and appalling executive orders and public pronouncements every day, it has never been

In 2024, more than 60 countries will have elections at different levels of government1. The disputes will not only be electoral, but also about the

In 2024, more than 60 countries will have elections at different levels of government. The contests will not only be electoral, but also about the

When Trump was elected for the first time, in 2016, we published a compilation of articles that predominantly analyzed the astonishment that the election result

Introduction Once again, our newsletter brings you news and analysis about the current times, which are more somber than bright: authoritarian trends, the continued expansion

Misinformation campaigns and the future of Bangladesh-India relations – The Daily Star Hasina fled Bangladesh, leaving behind a ‘beaten’ Indian security establishment – Nenews Cannot

>> Read in PDF << Part 1 – Democracies in dispute Introduction As we have pointed out in previous editions, in recent years sexual politics

English If Trump Wins – NY Times Why Trump’s Second Victory Would Be Worse – The Nation The Theocratic Blueprint for Trump’s Next Term –

English Post-election A Non-BJP Government Will Be Unstable, But It is Our Only Hope to Save the Constitution – The Wire To Deal With His

EnglishModi’s Power Keeps Growing, and India Looks Sure to Give Him More – NY Times Simultaneous Elections Will Be a Blow to India’s Popular Sovereignty

Senegal elections: President-elect Bassirou Diomaye Faye to lead with ‘humility’ – BBC Senegal election: Voters choose new president after political crisis – BBC Election Delay

English 100 Days of War: Death, Destruction and Loss – NY Times Ukraine round-up: 100 days of war and some Russians refuse to fight –

Is Trump’s power over Republicans starting to slip? – BBC All the Republicans Who Won’t Support Trump – NY Times A Prominent Anti-Trump Republican Says

Last week’s rallies in London, Berlin, and Los Angeles against lockdown measures attracted both New Agers and far-right groups. We’ve seen before this overlap between the spiritual

Title  Vehicle / Author Pedophilia – more of the same? SPW Monsters Under The Bed SPW How Covid-19 myths are merging with the QAnon conspiracy

The 2020 US presidential election in data: how Joe Biden won – New Statesman How Homegrown Disinformation Could Disrupt This U.S. Election – NY Times

Berlin protests against coronavirus rules divide German leaders – The Guardian Neonazistas, conspiracionistas e antivacinas marcham an Alemanha pelo fim do isolamento – El País

Brazil Hits 7 Million Cases With Infections Picking Up Speed – Bloomberg Brazil’s president rejects COVID-19 vaccine, undermining a century of progress toward universal inoculation

Offline: COVID-19 is not a pandemic – The Lancet The COVID-19 syndemic is not global: context matter – The Lancet One stillbirth every 16 seconds,

Majority says winner of presidential election should nominate next Supreme Court justice, Post-ABC poll finds – Washington Post Trump’s Selection of Amy Coney Barrett for

July, 2019  Isabela Kalil: Políticas de direita criam ‘Bolsonaro protetor de mulheres’, diz estudiosa – Universa  Isabela Kalil: ‘O bolsonarismo é maior que Bolsonaro’: projeto

A summary of the article “Corona protests: The cross front for trivialization” authored by Nils Markwardt and published at Die Zeit in May 2020. By

EUROPE Crisis and Resistance at the Periphery: Bosnian responses to COVID -19 –  Critical Legal Thinking Coronavirus: Hungary bid to end emergency powers ‘an optical

By Bárbara Sepúlveda Hales & Lieta Vivaldi Macho The recent appointment of the new Minister of Women and Gender Equality, Macarena Santelices, by President Sebastián

US stocks surge as NYSE trading floor reopens – Al Jazeera Latin America’s Virus Villains: Corrupt Officials Collude With Price Gougers for Body Bags and

English Black Lives Matter The Souls of White Folk – Verso Books Illiberal Racisms, Extremism and the Discursive Reconstruction of the Far Right – Verso

English Germany Politicians worry about radicalization at anti-lockdown protests – Deutsche Welle US Tea Party 2.0: What the Reopen Protest have in common with the

Hungary Hungary rolls back legal protections, puts trans and intersex people at risk – Ilga Europe Hungary votes to end legal recognition of trans people

“Amor en los tiempos del covid-19” march, organized by the government. Photo: EFE. Nicaragua and the dance of horrors in the struggle against COVID 19

MAY / JUNE Hunger, infection and repression: Venezuela’s coronavirus calamity – New Yorker Contact-Tracing Apps: No Substitute for Public Healthcare Interventions – Bot Populi Spread

The Resentful and the Damned – Jacobin The Dangers of Detoxification – Jacobin Nigel Farage’s Populist Brexit Party Wins Big in European Parliament Elections –

On December 3rd, sociologist Jacqueline Pitanguy became the target of a serious accusation by the Brazilian Minister of Family Women and Human Rights, Damares Alves,

By Santiago Puyol* The elections held in Uruguay on Sunday, October 27th, represented the greatest news for the Uruguayan political system fifteen years after the

By Jaime Barrientos, Facultad de Psicología, Universidad Alberto Hurtado, Chile, and Manuel Cárdenas, Escuela de Psicología, Universidad Valparaíso, Chile. In Chile, at the beginning of

Why there is no such concept as a “gender ideology”? And whose interests does it serve to? There is no ideology of gender, for that

By Sonia Corrêa A few days before completing the symbolic mark of Jair Messias Bolsonaro’s – or  JMB’s – first 100 days of government, consecrated

By Fábio Grotz A continuous state of war driven by the government is what drives the speech and activities of actors engaged in the redemptive

Euro-election results 2019: a wake-up call to traditional parties – openDemocracy The path to electoral victory in Salvini’s Italy: Open opposition to the pope –

The National Association of Postgraduate Studies in Philosophy (ANPOF) and associations hereby signed vehemently repudiate declarations made by the President and the  Minister of Education

The associations hereby signed manifest their indignation and extreme concern with the recent statements made by the  President and Ministry of Education with regard to

Recife, 15 March 2019. We are in a political moment marked by setbacks and by obscurantism against universities, which attack their finest traits: critical thinking,

The Ministry of Education (MEC) created on Wednesday (March 20th) a three-person commission to assess the national exam whose scores are used to get in

By Sonia Corrêa Time to mourn Politics is both reasoning and affect. This is how the first version of this essay, written in the immediate aftermath

The President and the Golden Shower – New York Times Bolsonaro Tweets Explicit Video To Criticize Brazilian Carnaval – Folha de São Paulo Brazil’s Bolsonaro

The teratology of the contemporary political imagination – plentiful enough: Trump, Le Pen, Salvini, Orbán, Kaczyński, ogres galore – has acquired a new monster. Rising above

SPW has compiled news, articles and assessments on the first two months of Brazilian far-right new administration and its setbacks and worrying moves, in various fronts such as Education, Foreign Affairs, Health, Human Rights and corruption scandals.

A specter of Dictatorship in Brazil – NACLA Brazil’s election of far-right Bolsonaro leaves researchers reeling – Chemistry World Bolsonaro poses a serious threat to

In a time of mourning, processing and making our best to re-exist in the glooming post-electoral atmosphere in Brazil, SPW brings back to our screens

Statement of the German Sociological Association We are not an empty line – Statement from the University of Gothenburg faculty Statement from ELTE CEU Reiterates

Español Articles in the news Informe preliminar CIDH, documenta el uso desproporcionado de la fuerza durante las manifestaciones de abril 2018, en Nicaragua – Iniciativa Mesoamericana

SPW has the pleasure to announce the recently published book Anti-Gender Campaigns in Europe: Mobilizing against Equality, edited by Roman Kuhar and David Paternotte. Description

Wendy Brown University of California, Berkeley Neoliberalism and neoconservatism are two distinct political rationalities in the contemporary United States. They have few overlapping formal characteristics,

In Italy too, academic freedom is under threat, and democracy along with it. Barely has the extreme right assumed power that its effects are already

Papers and articles Just as U.S. Media Does With MLK, Brazil’s Media Is Trying to Whitewash and Exploit Marielle Franco’s Political Radicalism – The Intercept

On Wednesday, February 14, Parkland suffered a violent episode of mass shooting at the Stoneman Douglas High School depicted by 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz, who was

Operation Car Wash: Is this the biggest corruption scandal in history? – The Guardian  The Guardian view on Brazilian corruption: the public deserve a voice

My own sense is that Trump unleashed a rage that has several objects and several causes, and we should probably be skeptical of those who claim to know the true cause and the exclusive object. The condition of economic devastation and disappointment, the loss of hope in the face of an economic future brought on by economic

The question of whether and how authoritarian regimes may use gender politics to preserve their rule has attracted insufficient academic attention so far. Research on state feminism shows that non‐democratic regimes often enact women‐friendly policies for the purpose of maintaining power. However, this finding has not been linked to the broader research on authoritarian resilience.

Burkini beach row puts French values to test – BBC Cannes ‘burkini’ ban: What do Muslim women think? – BBC Rights group to take action after Cannes

In discussions around why young Syrian men join armed groups (such as ISIS or Jabhat al-Nusra) in Syria, it often boils down to two main theories: that of sectarianism, the ancient, seemingly perpetual divide between Sunni and Shia Muslims, or that of Islam being a ‘religion of violence’.

The Passport Administration at Cairo International Airport banned this morning feminist activist and woman human rights defender (WHRD) Mozn Hassan from traveling during completion of her departure procedures from Cairo to Beirut, and she was informed verbally that the travel ban had been issued by the Egyptian General Prosecutor based on the request of the investigative judge.

SPW shares an unnamed letter written by  Bangladesh activist after the murders of LGBT activists in the Asian country in the past weeks. The letter

We have the great pleasure to inform that our Spanish page has been re-launched. In this opportunity Alejandra Sardá from Akahatá has written an update

In recent weeks, the Egyptian authorities have summoned human rights workers for questioning, banned them from travel and attempted to freeze their personal funds and

Women were at the forefront of the pro-democracy protests in Libya in 2011, which, after escalating into civil war, culminated in the ousting of dictator Muammar Gaddafi. But in the years that have followed, as state institutions have crumbled and insecurity prevails, women have struggled to have their voices heard.

Around 40 percent of women in the West Bank have had abortions, though the procedure remains illegal in Palestine. So guess where they go.

(I had spent a week in Gujarat in February-March,2007 and published two reports in TEHELKA. Reproducing the first part to remind myself that it was

By Kathy Bougher September 2, 2014 – 7:24 pm Fundamentalist groups in El Salvador have escalated their media attacks against the “Freedom for the 17”

Read the article “Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning, the New Dissidents?” about United States machinery that satisfies certain tendencies that are in the genetic code

Read feminist Zillah Eisenstein’s article about the Manning case. “Manning has initiated a rare moment of opportunity that makes mainstream silence a bit more difficult”.

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